Hello everyone!
Since we are in the middle of our fund drive, we thought it would be a
good idea to let all you readers know what it is we LINGUIST List
editors do. Since we are asking for your help in funding us, you
should see what goes on 'behind the scenes' here.
Most of you already know about our convenient web forms for submitting
your calls for papers, job announcements, queries, and the like. What
a lot of you may not know, however, is that LINGUIST List issues are
not completely automated, and we need to add a 'human touch' to
provide you with the beautifully edited issues you are used to seeing.
First, all the submissions we receive need to be sorted. We receive
nearly 200 emails each day, and one of us needs to go through the list
and sort calls for papers from job announcements, queries from
journals, and so on.
Next, the editors need to go through each submission convert any
strange characters into readable type. For example, an email that
looks like this...
Ck5BVkVSIC0gaHR0cDovL3d3dy5uYXZlci5jb20vCi0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tCgq52rz2waQgKGNocmlzMTcpILTUsrIgurizu73FILjewM8gPDE1
LjEwODAsIFFzOiBMMSBVdHRlcmFuY2UgU291cmNlOyBFbmdsaXNoIEF1eGlsaWFyeSBPbWlzc2lv
bj4gwMwgtNnAvbD6ILCwwLogwMzAr7fOIMD8vNsgvcfG0MffvcC0z7TZLgoKLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0KCrz2vcXA2rChILTnvcXAxyC43sDPwLsg
vPa9xbDFus7Hz7+0vcC0z7TZLgoKCgotLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
LS0tLS0tLS0tLQo=
...could actually be a submission lurking underneath some incompatible
characters! We fix these problems by hand, and end up with readable
text.
Another task we have to do here is sort out submissions for content.
For example, we have to be sure that each and every request makes it
to the appropriate section of our database. We ensure that conference
announcements don't accidentally get lost in, say, journal
announcements.
In other words, it takes actual human editors to keep our site so well
organized, which ensures that you can find any information you are
looking for with just a few clicks.
And just like you, our email inbox is not immune to the dreaded SPAM!
Out of the 200 emails we get every day, some 70% of that is spam, and
we have to delete it. If our issues were "automatically generated,"
you might see a LINGUIST issue like this one:
...in wonderful spirit=2EI am making this contact with you based on
trust and confidence irrespective of the fact that we have not met
before and because of the nature of the business I am about to
introduce=2C I want to remain positive having the faith and the will
and convincing myself that you will be capable to help me for the
sucessful completion of this pressing transaction that will be
beneficial to both of us=2E....
(I'm sure messages like this are already all too familiar to you!).
And finally, submissions have to be formatted so they look neat and
clean. Otherwise, LINGUIST issues might look something like this:
Binding Theory, which is concerned with sentence-internal constraints
on
anaphora, was originally conceived in syntactic terms as a set of
conditions
on the distribution of indices (Chomsky 1983). Thus Condition A stated that
anaphors are locally bound (*John/i thinks that himself/i is clever); Condition
B stated that Pronominals are
locally free (*He/i likes him/i), and Condition C required that
R-expressions
be free (*He/i thinks that John/i is clever). But other
As you can see, these inconsistent line breaks need to be cleaned up
before they can be sent to you.
I hope that you all now have a better idea of why the linguistic
community needs to help fund the graduate student editors at LINGUIST.
It takes a lot of 'personpower' to bring you the quality you expect
from our list and website. If you have ever found LINGUIST List to be
a reliable source of information about the world of linguistics,
please take a moment to make a donation.
With much thanks,
Andrea Berez,
LINGUIST List Editor,
Calls for Papers/ Conferences

This Year the LINGUIST List hope to raise $60,000. This money will go
to help keep the List running, by supporting all of our Student
Editors for the coming year.
There are many ways to donate to LINGUIST!
You can donate right now using our secure credit card form, at:
http://www.linguistlist.org/donate.html
You can also pledge right now and pay later, at:
http://www.linguistlist.org/pledge.html
For all information on donating, including information on how to
donate by check, money order, or wire transfer, please visit:
http://www.linguistlist.org/donation.html
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If you have already pledged to LINGUIST and would now like to pay by
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http://linguistlist.org/creditcard-general.html
and select 'PAY PREVIOUS PLEDGE' as the Type of Payment from the
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The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Eastern Michigan University
and as such can receive donations through the EMU Foundation, which is
a registered 501(c) Non Profit organization. Our Federal Tax number is
38-6005986. These donations can be offset against your federal and
sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only). For more
information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor.
Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that they will
match any gift you make to a non-profit organization. Normally this
entails your contacting your human resources department and sending us
a form that the EMU Foundation fills in and returns to your employer.
This is generally a simple administrative procedure that doubles the
value of your gift to LINGUIST, without costing you an extra penny.
Please take a moment to check if your company operates such a program.
Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!